


raspberry lemonade

by pfaerie



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: First Time, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Minor Character Death, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 09:08:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11227794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pfaerie/pseuds/pfaerie
Summary: Sara used to joke that Scott’s fussy personality would be cured if he got laid and could check “die a virgin” off his list of endless worries. Having done it now, he feels...well, sore and sweaty and a little exhausted, but he doesn’t feel any different.Or the one where Scott and Reyes have a one-night stand on the Citadel and run into each other six-hundred and eighty-five years later.





	raspberry lemonade

**Author's Note:**

> Another small warning for mentions of alcohol and past alcohol-abuse on Scott's end, though both of them are entirely sober and consenting in this fic.

Scott Ryder is twenty-one and spending the anniversary of his mother’s death in a corner booth of Purgatory. The loud, pulsing music helps him drown out any of the negative thoughts fighting to be heard, and the alcohol...well Scott can’t bring himself to drink anything more than a few sips of Akantha sitting in front of him. It’s strong enough that the smell alone is making him feel light headed, and Scott remembers the last time he touched something like this, he was nineteen and feeling particularly self-destructive; Mom’s latest appointment left her with more pills and confirmation that the AEND was still eating away at her brain. He doesn’t remember anything but the black eye Sara got for him.

Sara made him promise to stop drinking.

He wishes his twin was here instead of digging around Prothean ruins, wonders how long it’ll be before she’s kicked out the same way he was booted from the Systems Alliance. _Knock on wood, Ryder,_ he tells himself. It’s selfish of him to want that. It’s childish of him to want his big sister to come back and take care of him, tell him it’s going to be okay. Reminding himself of that doesn’t make him want her here any less.

He must look pretty pathetic sitting in a corner alone, staring down a bottle of asari liquor. To be fair, he feels pretty pathetic. He wasn’t supposed to come back to the Citadel. The plan was to quietly rise through the ranks of the Alliance until he was given his own ship, finally travel the galaxy, and eventually settle down on Proteus or Amaterasu or maybe even finally see that Earth Mom always spoke so highly of.

But no, Dad had to go and fuck it all up. As if existing as Alec Ryder’s kid wasn’t hard enough, as if the weight of the world wasn’t placed on his and Sara’s shoulders since birth, he just had to go and experiment with an illegal AI project. Scott can’t even blow his nose anymore without it being investigated. _Thanks, Dad. Also, thanks for checking in on me. Nice to know you care!_ Not.

Scott is startled out of his internal argument with his father by a smooth voice that says, “you look like you’re waiting for someone.” It makes him bang his knee on the bottom of the table, rattle the thing so hard his drink splashes onto its surface and drips into his lap. “It wasn’t my intention to scare you," the voice says, amusement clear over the thrumming music.

“No-you didn’t,” Scott sputters, grabbing a handful of napkins to mop up the alcohol best he can. “Just surprised me is all-it’s fine now. Situation normal.” _Stop talking, holy shit._ In his haste to clean up the mess, his fingers knock the open bottle of Akantha. It almost tips over, but the stranger catches it. Scott’s forced to finally look at him.

He recognizes the uniform, knows the emblem on his right bicep marks him as a pilot, but he’s never seen him before in all his years on the Citadel. His jet black hair is too long to be regulation, so Scott figures he must be a cargo pilot on a civilian ship, or maybe he just likes to bend the rules. With a swipe of his hand, the stranger pushes the strands back only to have them fall back in his face. There’s too many flashing lights for Scott to determine what color his eyes are, but they’re bright against his dark brown skin, inviting him to get close enough to find out.

“Thanks,” Scott finally says, taking the bottle back. The stranger slides into the bench parallel to Scott and smiles when their feet knock together. “I’m Scott,” he says dumbly, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“You can call me Reyes,” the stranger, well, _Reyes_ says. “I’d offer to buy you a drink, but I’m afraid you’d just spill it.”

Scott's ears burn. “Is Reyes a last name or a first name?”

“Which one is ‘Scott’?” and that actually throws Scott for a loop because he’s so used to people just _knowing_ who he is on sight. It’s actually refreshing to not hear _‘you mean Alec Ryder’s kid?’_ for once. He drops his shoulders, tension starting to melt away. He forgets to answer the question, so Reyes asks, “are you though? Waiting for someone, I mean.”

Scott shakes his head. “No.”

He likes the way Reyes says, “perfect.” It’s probably the first time he’s ever heard the word used in relation to himself. His palms feel sweaty and Purgatory’s atmosphere makes it hard to think of something to say, not that Scott would fair much better if they were literally anywhere else in the Citadel. He should have had more to drink - he probably wouldn’t be so nervous. “Are you always this delightfully awkward?” Reyes asks. The way he cradles his chin in his hand is like he’s eagerly awaiting an answer.

“Only when a good-looking guy talks to me.”

“So that’s a ‘quite frequently’, then?”

“It’s a curse,” Scott laughs. He’s never been hit on before, or at least, not so aggressively. Reyes’ boot is working its way up to about mid-shin, dragging the cuff of his pants up a bit before sliding back down to his ankle. He feels goosebumps rise on the back of his neck and arms when Reyes brushes his knuckles against his hand. Maybe he’s not used to being touched so casually, maybe it’s something about this man in particular, but Scott likes the way it’s making every nerve in his body light up.

“Tell me about it,” Reyes says. It takes a minute for Scott to adjust, but before he knows it he manages to steer the conversation to something normal. They don’t share much about themselves, opt for keeping the conversation light and easy, but he still learns a few things about Reyes regardless. They agree that _Blasto Saves Christmas_ is the best movie in the franchise even though it’s a sequel. The topic of sequels leads them to  _Star Wars,_ Scott's favorite being Episode VIII and Reyes preferring the original trilogy.  _Star Trek_ gets thrown in the mix, and Reyes admits that the only reason he prefers _Star Wars_ to _Star Trek_ is because he’s never seen the latter. Scott’s in the middle of explaining why Picard is better than Kirk when Reyes makes a face, eyelids drooping like he’s bored. It’s a familiar expression, one he’s seen more times than he can count.

“Sorry,” Scott says sheepishly, heat creeping up his neck. It feels like his throat is closing. “I’m rambling. I just get really into it, so I forget it can be pretty boring.”

Reyes knits his eyebrows together in confusion. “I was caught up in the sound of your voice,” he says honestly, and it throws Scott of kilter again because nobody’s ever said they like hearing him talk before.

“Oh.”

“Maybe you could tell me more about it back at my place?”

“Oh,” Scott says again, voice raising a few octaves. He's surprised when the words, “I’d like that,” spill out his mouth. He thinks maybe the anniversary of Mom's death has him particularly aware of his mortality, and maybe that's why he's following Reyes out of the bar, heat pooling deep in his belly at the excitement of it all. _Nobody wants to die a virgin,_ feels like a cliché, but there’s some truth to it.

He expected the walk to feel awkward, but true to his word, Reyes lets him continue his Picard versus Kirk tirade. He notices the way Reyes actively responds to everything he’s saying now, with a question or a sound of acknowledgement and Scott is positively giddy for it. He’s happy he doesn’t get the chance to second-guess himself because holy shit does he want this.

“You’re cute when you talk about this kind of thing,” Reyes says when he keys in his room code.

Holy shit he wants this.

It’s not one of the bigger apartments that Scott grew up in, but it’s still a comfortable enough space with a nice view of the Presidium. There’s a few boxes stacked in the corner of the living room, another box half unpacked on the kitchen counter, and a severe lack of any personal touches that makes Scott wonder how long Reyes has been living on the Citadel. He wonders what planet he’s from.

“Forgive the mess,” Reyes says, hooking his fingers in the waistband of Scott’s pants to pull him closer. He’s warm and smells like alcohol and the lower wards, like sweat and oil and electricity. Scott likes it, has always liked the smell of hard work over anything else. Scott is close enough to see that Reyes’ eyes are hazel, an indecisive mix of brown and green and god are they gorgeous in the dim, blue lighting of the apartment.

He kisses Reyes without even thinking about it, and it feels really good when he kisses him back. The _whoosh_ of the bedroom door opening is barely audible over his own heartbeat and the blood rushing to his ears. Reyes takes a step back, and Scott chases after him, doesn’t let their mouths disconnect until Reyes is hiking his shirt up.

“Want to help me out of this?” he asks. He laughs at the way Scott keeps kissing him, tries to turn away only to make an amusing sound when Scott presses his mouth to a particularly sensitive spot on his neck. He pulls impatiently at the fastenings until Reyes helps him and effortlessly slides out of the shirt. Scott peels the tank top off without a problem.

And god, Reyes is soft and easy to look at and Scott wants to count the moles and freckles that are speckled all over his skin. “Do you have a preference?” Reyes asks, unzipping Scott’s fly, and he’s too excited to get hung up on the fact that Reyes is the first person to have his hands there.

“No,” Scott says. He can’t tear his eyes away from the way Reyes’ hands dip into his unfastened pants, thumbs scratching at the dark, curly hair peeking out. “I haven’t done anything like this before.”

He lets Reyes lead him to the bed, lies back when Reyes drags a hand up his belly to his chest and nudges. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Promise?” Scott wants to kick himself for sounding so small.

“Promise.”

Scott’s fingered himself before, experimented when jerking off was an almost nightly occurrence, but it didn’t do much to prepare him for the feeling of a total stranger doing it. He feels vulnerable and exposed, ass in the air and legs spread wide with a man he barely knows knuckle deep in him.

But at the same time, it doesn’t feel that different. He likes the stretch and curl of Reyes’ teasing fingers, can’t stop the noises pouring out of his mouth every time Reyes moves. He doesn’t know if he should push against or pull away when a third finger joins the other two, but his hips give an involuntary jerk when Reyes twists his wrist.

“Relax,” Reyes says, puff of air hot against Scott’s back. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah-” Scott says automatically. He shakes his head, tries to gather up the courage to ask, “actually, can I-can we keep kissing while you do that?”

“Of course,” Reyes says patiently. He waits for Scott to flip onto his back, and when they kiss this time, it’s heated and somehow calming at the same time. He doesn’t even flinch when Reyes starts to finger him again, just focuses on how well their mouths fit together.

When Reyes pulls his fingers out, Scott shivers, chases after him with a whine when he pulls away. “Not going anywhere,” he says. Scott flops back onto the pillow and tries to calm down, silently talks himself back down so he can last longer than two seconds when he’s fucked for the first time.

God, that’s still weird to think. It doesn’t feel real.

The sound of foil being crinkled makes Scott’s eyes snap open, and his first thought is how underprepared he was to see Reyes with a condom between his teeth as he strokes himself. Hastily Scott averts his gaze, so fast that his neck twinges at the sudden movement. “You’re allowed to look,” Reyes says. Scott’s ears burn when he adds, “in fact, I’d be deeply offended if you didn’t.”

Scott makes a choked noise that he plays off as a cough as he swallows his nerves. He props himself up on his elbows and lets himself look at the naked man in front of him, files every piece of Reyes away in his memory to jerk off to later. His own cock twitches when Reyes tears the condom open with his teeth and rolls it on and holy shit. Is this really happening?

This is really happening.

He knows he’s probably scarlet all the way down to his chest, but Reyes is decent enough not to say anything, decent enough to be liberal with the lube and move his hips real slow when he finally lines himself up. The stretch feels so much better than fingers, and Reyes nibbling at his ear and throat is distracting him from the unfamiliar pain. Reyes groans when he’s fully sheathed inside, peppers kisses on Scott’s cheekbones and jaw.

This is good, right? It feels good for Scott, and Scott thinks it must feel good for Reyes too because he keeps saying as much, whispering sweet words into Scott’s ear. Scott will hang on to every syllable.

Scott buries his face in the crook of Reyes’ shoulder when he starts to move, clings to his shoulders so hard he’s sure Reyes will have bruises in the morning. He doesn’t last long at all, comes completely untouched on a particularly deep thrust, but he feels too good to care about it as much as he thought he would. Reyes comes in three more, bites a mark into Scott’s shoulder that sends shivers down his spine.

Reyes is careful when he pulls out, doesn’t flop on top of Scott due to an overexertion of passion, though Scott wouldn’t have minded if he did. He likes the weight of Reyes’ arm slung over his chest though, likes how he can feel Reyes breathing against his neck. It’s silent save for the panting, even Scott’s head is blissfully silent, brain more than a little scrambled.

He thinks he hears Reyes mutter, “be right back,” before he forces himself out of bed, so Scott doesn’t bother moving. He gets a nice view of Reyes’ ass before he disappears into the bathroom though, and for some reason the dimples right above it makes Scott smile. Reyes leaves the door open just a crack, not enough for Scott to see anything, but enough for him to hear Reyes’ feet slap against the tile and rush of water when Reyes turns on the sink.

Sara used to joke that Scott’s fussy personality would be cured if he got laid and could check “die a virgin” off his list of endless worries. Having done it now, he feels...well, sore and sweaty and a little exhausted, but he doesn’t feel any different. At least, he doesn’t feel like having a dick in him has somehow transformed him into a socially competent butterfly or anything like that. He wonders if that means he did it wrong.

Scott never considered his virginity to be anything particularly special, other people always made a bigger deal out of it than he ever did, but he doesn’t understand the hype. He figures he’s lucky because his first time wasn’t a fumbling disaster, but it’s not like he was seeing fireworks. But he also wants to do it again, do more than just lie there and have someone do all the work.

The mattress dips down and Reyes softly says, “you look comfortable.” He’s vaguely aware of the warm washcloth scrubbing at his belly and chest, laughs a bit when Reyes runs it down his thighs. Is he supposed to thank him now? Maybe he was supposed to leave while Reyes was in the bathroom? He tries to at least move so Reyes can pull the blankets out from under him, but his limbs refuse to listen to him so Reyes is forced to wrestle them out from under him instead.

Scott wakes up, alone, at six o’clock in the morning. He silently curses the Systems Alliance for making his internal alarm so damn early, but he doesn’t get far in that mental tirade because his body starts to wake up too. He aches all over, muscles he didn’t know he had twinging when he sits up. He does his best to stretch out some of the tightness, but it doesn’t do much for the pain in his lower back.

He doesn’t realize how thirsty he is until he sees the bottle of water on the night stand. Reyes must have anticipated the pain too because there’s a bottle of ibuprofen right next to it. Scott finds himself smiling again when he sees a note - an honest to god hand-written note - on the table too.

_Thanks for an amazing night, Scott. I’ll treasure it always. Promise. -Reyes_

Surprisingly, he doesn’t feel abandoned. While it may have been nice to wake up in his arms, it sounds a little too romantic for a one-time thing. This is easier, no chance of Scott feeling judged or awkward or spilling his guts.

He takes a quick shower, jerks off because it’s better than turning the faucet to cold and being frustrated all day, and gets dressed in clothes that still smell like the liquor he spilled on himself when Reyes first talked to him. He considers writing a note before he leaves, but he’s scared he’s just going to end up slapping “ditto” on the page and he can’t do that. He does tuck Reyes’ note in his pocket as he steals another bottle of water from the fridge though.

Six-hundred and eighty-five years later, Scott Ryder is on a new planet in a new galaxy, surrounded by people he barely knows who all depend on him for their survival. Heleus has been nothing but a shitshow, and once again Scott finds himself thanking Dad for making his life difficult. The mess that is Nexus leadership is enough to make Scott’s head spin, but the addition of angaran politics, genocidal Kett, and the Remnant has him constantly feeling like he’s being pulled in a million different directions. And _now_ it looks like he’ll have to deal with the exiles too.

 _Thanks, Dad,_ Scott thinks bitterly again.

Sara should have been Pathfinder. She’s always been better at this kind of thing - or at least, she’s always taken the more logical approach that leadership seems to value, a trait she managed to get from Dad. The crew tells him he’s doing fine, even Cora defends his decisions without question, but he still feels entirely lacking.

Scott leans on the bar and scrubs his face, listens to the asari bartender yell at a krogan over credits when he hears, “you look like you’re waiting for someone,” and his heart recognizes the voice before his brain does, face flushing before he even turns around.

Reyes’ hair is shorter now, and he’s slimmer too, and Scott’s resisting the urge to literally pinch himself because this can’t actually be happening. This has to be some kind of cosmic, intergalactic joke. Reyes can’t be Shena, Reyes can’t be in Andromeda. “I was expecting someone more...angaran…”

It’s a small comfort that Reyes looks just as surprised to see him, takes a second to respond with, “to say the least.” They stare at each other for an uncomfortably long period of time, until Umi puts drinks in front of them. “We should…” Reyes trails off.

“Talk?” Scott suggests. And then he remembers why he’s on this planet in the first place, that someone is about to be publicly executed if he doesn’t act fast. “After-I mean, I’m here for Vehn Terev, but. Later?”

Later is that night in another bar called Tartarus, after Scott finishes crawling through service shafts to deliver a jailbreak device to the angaran traitor. Tartarus reminds him so much of Purgatory, right down to the obnoxious fluorescent lights and half-naked asari dancers.

He hesitates at the door to the back room, almost doesn’t go in, but then it slides open and an asari waitress brushes past him. He makes eye contact with Reyes and it’s too late to turn back. His chest hurts and it’s hard to breathe, and SAM warns him he’s on the brink of a panic attack. He knows what a panic attack feels like, thank you.

God, this is awkward. It shouldn’t be awkward, but it’s awkward because Scott is awkward. _Delightfully awkward_ as Reyes had put it. It doesn’t feel delightful anymore. “So.” He’s pretending like he doesn’t remember what Reyes looks like naked.

“So,” Reyes parrots.

“Why are you here?” he asks, a little more aggressively than he intends. Reyes raises his eyebrows. “Fuck-sorry. I don’t mean it like that. I just-you get how weird this is, right? This is weird.”

When he was little, Mom would tell him that she knew Dad was the one because just when she thought she’d never see him again, he came back. They went on one awkward date in Rio De Janeiro and got too busy to go on another one. _I was absorbed in my research, and I figured he’d completed his training and went to some corner of the galaxy,_ she’d said, eyes practically sparkling. _Imagine my surprise when I ran into him on the street a few months later._ It always sounded romantic to Scott, like his parents were soulmates.

He wonders if Dad was just as embarrassed to see Mom again as Scott is to see Reyes.

“It feels like you’re making it weird?” Reyes says carefully. “It doesn’t have to be weird.” He watches Scott pace, scoots over when Scott sits on the sofa and fidgets. “If this is some kind of Pathfinder reputation thing, I’m not going to hold it against you. It was just-”

“It was my first time doing that,” Scott blurts out because he doesn’t want to hear the end of that, doesn’t want to hear that it was ‘just sex.’

“But it’s not like you were a virgin,” Reyes laughs, clapping Scott on the back. It dies down real fast when Scott doesn’t say anything. “Surely you’ve been with women, though?” Scott’s face is burning so hot it feels like he’s going to explode. He shakes his head, stares at the floor and wishes it would open up and swallow him whole. “Ah-” Reyes pulls away awkwardly, tries to do something with his hands, but Scott can still feel it hovering over his shoulder. “Well, shit.”

“I don’t regret it,” Scott says hastily. And it’s true. He doesn’t regret a second of it. He’d do it all exactly the same way if he had to do it all over again. “I got used to the idea I wouldn’t ever _see_ you again.” God, he hasn’t even been with anyone since, but he’s lost count of how many times he’s jerked off to the memory of that night. He told himself it wasn’t anything special, that it was just a one-time thing, but shit. Reyes went ahead and made himself special anyways. “I don’t know where to go from here.”

“It doesn’t have to go anywhere if you don’t want it to.”

“What if I want it to go somewhere though?” he asks, finally looking at Reyes’ face. He looks surprised at Scott’s honestly, like he’s still trying to process the words and god his eyes are still bright and beautiful and Scott can’t tear his own away.

“You…” Reyes clears his throat. “I’m not the same man I was in the Milky Way, Scott.”

“Good. That guy didn’t say goodbye.”

“I left a note,” Reyes protests, though he’s smiling.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Scott says. “But-I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want to.” He’d get over Reyes eventually, though the thought of rejection - is it still rejection six-hundred years later? - still stings a bit.

“I’m not saying no,” Reyes says. “I’m saying let’s take some time to get to know one another this time around.”

Scott nods his head in agreement. “So what does ‘Shena’ mean, since we’re getting to know one another?”

A smirk pulls at Reyes’ lips. “It means ‘mouth’ in angaran. I’m...good with words. Among other things,” he says, amusement lacing the words as Scott gets flustered and buries his face in his hands.

“You’re _fucking_ with me.”

“Not yet, Pathfinder.”

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd so any mistakes are my own. Thanks for reading!


End file.
